Volberg comments on New Hampshire candidate's claim about correlation between gambling and income

Rachel Volberg, Research Associate Professor of Epidemiology, was quoted in a recent Concord Monitor article that fact checked two New Hampshire state senate candidates. Lydia Harman, a Republican candidate for state senate district 15, argued in a debate that legalizing casino gambling “is saying to the impoverished people here in New Hampshire...you are our ticket to more revenue.” Volberg says in the article that the statement is not quite accurate. “As far as I’m aware, there is no research showing that people in lower income groups gamble more often or more frequently than people who are in higher income groups,” she said. “It is pretty clear that lower income people spend a greater proportion of their income on gambling, but that’s because they have less income, not because they gamble more frequently.” Read more here.